in after-use plans for new venues for modern pentathlon and rowing/sprint canoeing. A new temporary arena for gymnastics will be converted into a convention center post-Games, while the new volleyball facility is to become a multipurpose venue for concerts and other events.

“I don’t think there are the same risks [as for Rio 2016]. I don’t see it at all,” Coates said.

IOC Expects Golf Club Solution

On the controversy swirling around the Kasumigaseki golf club’s refusal to allow female members, Coates said he hopes IOC pressure on Tokyo 2020 and the club will help to bring a solution. “They tell me it’s heading in the right direction but our position is pretty firm. If it’s not, we have to go somewhere else,” Coates said.

“This was the number one choice. They are not building a new course. This was the best. The club has already spent a fair bit of money improving the course in readiness. It always understood it would have to be gender equal,” he added.

Golf club officials are set to discuss the issue at a meeting later this week.

The other major venue issue for Tokyo 2020 is the site for the new sports of skateboarding and sport climbing. “That’s the one we need to finalize. We understand where it is going but there are just some issues over the fish market relocation,” he said.

Reports about the scaling back of test events follow a misunderstanding between the IOC and Tokyo 2020, he noted.

Games organizers had planned to hire some grandstands with the same capacity as the Olympics. The IOC has told Tokyo 2020 this is not necessary and will lead to increasing costs.

“We have said ‘you have misunderstood this. you do not have to do that’. It’s the field of play that’s the most important thing, the transport and all of those arrangements,” Coates said.